science

Siemens Building Technologies

Siemens Building Technologies is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Siemens Building Technologies rather than just read about it. In short: Siemens Building Technologies is an operating division of Siemens providing automation technologies and services for commercial, industrial and public buildings, and infrastructures. The division is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, and employs 28,069 people worldwide (September 2018).

Key takeaways

Siemens Building Technologies belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Siemens Building Technologies to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Siemens Building Technologies from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Siemens Building Technologies is an operating division of Siemens providing automation technologies and services for commercial, industrial and public buildings, and infrastructures. The division is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, and employs 28,069 people worldwide (September 2018).

History Siemens Building Technologies resulted from the 1998 acquisition of the industrial activities of Elektrowatt Ltd. (Zurich, Switzerland), Cerberus Ltd. (Männdedorf, Switzerland), and of Staefa Control System Ltd. (Stäfa, Switzerland) by Siemens. The newly built Siemens Building Technologies CPS Software House was opened in Chicago in October 2017, built for $20 million as an R&D facility. In 2018, the division made a number of acquisitions, including Comfy in Oakland, and the smart-building companies J2 Innovations and Enlightened. President of the Siemens Building Technologies division was Dave Hopping. The company is "a vertically-integrated company in relation to smart building design, construction and operation." The company's products are used in LaGuardia airport in New York. In early 2019, Siemens Building Technologies began working with Violet Defense.

Corporate division Since January 2013, the three former Business Units - Security Systems (SES), Building Automation (BAU) and Fire Safety and Security (FSS) are divided into two business areas: Control Products & Systems (CPS) and Solutions & Service Portfolio (SSP).

Control Products & Systems (CPS) CPS designs and manufactures systems for building automation as well as products for heating, ventilation, air conditioning applications, for lighting, blinds controls, fire safety and extinguishing systems.

Solutions & Service Portfolio (SSP) The SSP unit offers integrated solutions for specialized areas of application or markets such as data centers, airports or life science. The SSP unit develops strategies, messaging and tools which support the digitalization of buildings and processes.

Controversies

Scandal about the merger with Landis and Gyr In 2002 the Siemens Group sold seven subsidiary companies to the US financial investor KKR. Most affected by this sale was the Swiss company Siemens Metering, located in Zug. 160 out of 360 employees lost their jobs. Siemens Metering was the result of the merger between Siemens and Landis & Gyr in 1998. The documentary “Verlorene Welt – Aus dem Innenleben des einstigen Konzerns Landis & Gyr” by Claudia Schmid and Michael van Orsouw involves the subject and had its first performance at the Solothurn Film Festival 2006.

Pension funds scandal Siemens sharpened 2006 the rules of conduct for its employees as a reaction to the financial scandal about disloyalty and assumed corruption. Peter Rüegg and Siemens Manager Roland Rümmeli found themselves in the sight of the investigations. Rümmeli was accused to have redirected kickbacks to his private accounts. The laid-off portfolio manager paid back the illegally drawn money (400’000.00 CHF) to Siemens.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Siemens Building Technologies

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Siemens Building Technologies claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Siemens Building Technologies before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Siemens Building Technologies ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Siemens Building Technologies

In research: Siemens Building Technologies appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Siemens Building Technologies in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Siemens Building Technologies is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Building automation, Companies based in Zug, Siemens, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Siemens Building Technologies outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Siemens Building Technologies in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Siemens Building Technologies means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Siemens Building Technologies out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Siemens Building Technologies in simple terms?

Why does Siemens Building Technologies matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Siemens Building Technologies?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Siemens Building Technologies.